Faculty of Arts - School of Humanities

2014 Alice Griffin Fellow: Dr Emma Smith

(Hertford College, Oxford)

Emma Smith (Hertford College, Oxford), this year's Alice Griffin Fellow, is a scholar of outstanding early career achievement in her field. She is especially interested in the critical history of Shakespeare (explored in the Blackwell Guides to Criticism, 2014), and in our investment in particular readings of his plays. Her recent publications all investigate the roots of scholarly consensus and how the interpretation of Shakespeare does particular cultural work at different moments. Some of these themes are picked up for a more general readership in her recent book, co-authored with Laurie Maguire of Magdalen College, Oxford: Thirty Great Myths about Shakespeare (2012), which asks why we like to believe, for instance, that Shakespeare hated his wife, was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, or never revised his plays. Another aspect of her research centres on the publication of print drama and on issues relating to editing. She is currently researching early readers of Shakespeare’s plays, especially a history of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the First Folio of 1623,a copy of which is owned by the Auckland Public Library.